Rarely do I find a splash screen that explicitly reveals the reveal
(see if you can spot it) ...
59. Rodentlike features, and a phonetic hint to a segment of 18-, 23-, 36-, and 50-Across: BEADY EYES. And without further ado, here are the 4 themers, provided to us by constructor John Michael Currie ...
18A. Sea creature who lived across the Strait of Messina from Scylla: CHARYBDIS. As described by Odysseus on his 10 year voyage home from the Trojan War (see also 46D). The phrase "between the Scylla and the Charybdis" is also a metaphor sometimes used for "being caught between the horns of a dilemma".
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| Charybdis |
36A. Seafood appetizer often seasoned with Old Bay: CRAB DIP. Teri's recipe for this popular Chesapeake Bay delight is posted on C.C.'s Ginger Roots Blog.
50A. Land of giants in "Gulliver's Travels": BROBDINGNAG. These creatures of Jonathan Swift's imagination are not only 60 feet tall, but they are also moral giants who have nothing to fear.
Still don't see it? Patti made it a lot harder than the hat trick from last week -- and certain members of our community will love the fact that there are no circles, stars, question marks, or any other cruciverbalist crutches, so I guess we'll need the grid π...
Here are the rest of the clues ...
Across:
1. False earnestness: SMARM.
6. Sawbuck halves: ABES. A sawbuck is a $10 bill and an
ABE is a $5 bill.
10. "Pencils down": TIME.
14. World capital once called Thang Long: HANOI. My
brother-in-law is from a capital just South of there now called
Ho Chi Minh City, once called SAIGON. But that terrible
time in history has passed, and he has returned to beautiful
Viet Nam a few times to lecture on his cancer research.
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|
Hanoi Travel Guide |
16. Human rights lawyer Clooney: AMAL. Amal Clooney (nΓ©e Alamuddin; born in Beirut, Lebanon, on 3 February 1978). is a British international human rights lawyer. Notable clients of hers include former Maldivian president Mohamed Nasheed, Australian WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, and Iraqi human rights activist Nadia Murad. She is fluent in English, French, and Arabic and has held various appointments with the Government of the United Kingdom and the United Nations, and is also an adjunct law professor at Columbia Law School.
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|
Amal Clooney |
18. [Theme clue].
20. Like good things happening to good people: KARMIC. The adjective form of the noun KARMA.
22. Not obviously true: ARGUABLE. I suppose if something is actually TRUE and you argue against it, then you are WRONG! π
23. [Theme clue].
25. Staffer: AIDE.
26. Norman Lear's specialty: SITCOMS. The most famous of which is probably All in the Family. It had a really great laugh track ...
34. Sandwich cookie: OREO. EKTORP.
35. End of a professor's address: EDU.
36. [Theme clue]
40. Heat quickly: ZAP.
41. Mattress option: FIRM.
43. Some "Percy Jackson & the Olympians" characters: DEMIGODS. After viewing clips for several video adaptations, I decided they were rated NFA (Not For Adults) and decided they were probably not the best way to teach kids Greek Mythology. I haven't read any of the novels, but this should tell you all you need to know.
49. Isolated group of employees: SILO. An information SILO, or a group of such silos, is an insular management system in which one information system or subsystem is incapable of reciprocal operation with others that are, or should be, related. Thus information is not adequately shared but rather remains sequestered within each system or subsystem, figuratively trapped within a container like grain is trapped within a silo, or a human actually trapped in an office cubicle. It can be a frustrating experience ...
54. Person experiencing the bystander effect, perhaps: ONLOOKER.
57. Heroic sister of children's literature: GRETEL. "Hansel and Gretel" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812 as part of Grimms' Fairy Tales. There have been many adaptations of it over the years, including an opera by Engleburt Humperdink (no relation to the singer Arnold George Dorsey MBE) and a 1987 film starring Cloris Leachman ...
61. Ticked off: IRATE.
62. Check status: VOID.
63. Cozy retreat: NEST.
64. Truly stuck: MIRED.
65. Home of Lucas Oil Stadium, familiarly: INDY. The venue for the yearly Indianapolis 500 Race. And if you're not into racing Taylor Swift will be there in November. π
66. SoCal school: SDSU. San Diego State University.
67. Snail trail: SLIME. Or the trail of an ethereal, supernatural presence ...
1. Literary citation abbr.: SHAK. Not ibid, op. cit., et. alia, but this guy ...
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|
William Shakespeare 1564-1616 |
3. "The United States vs. Billie Holiday" Oscar nominee Day: ANDRA. Andra Day plays Lady Day in this 2021 musical drama (some profanity) ...
A PSA by iRobot*
5. Bygone audio format: MINIDISC. MiniDisc (MD) is an erasable
magneto-optical disc-based data storage format offering a capacity of 60, 74,
and later, 80 minutes of digitized audio first distributed in November of 1992
and the last was sold in March of 2013. It is highly likely though that
operational versions of MiniDisc players are owned by the
National Archives, as
they are tasked with maintaining the capability to make available any US
government records in any medium to duly authorized persons.
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|
MiniDisc reader and disc |
7. Faith founded in Persia: BAHAI. ISLAM didn't play very well with the perps and then I remembered that although it is practiced in what is modern day IRAN, Islam was actually founded in SAUDI ARABIA. The BAHAI faith however was founded in the 19th century in what was then Persia. The governing body of the BahΓ‘ΚΌΓs is in modern day Haifa, Israel.
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| Seat of the Universal House of Justice |
9. Pianist Rachmaninoff: SERGEI. In addition to being a great pianist, he was a great Russian composer, my favorite actually. Here is a 3:30 min. excerpt from his Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini featuring the titular theme. The work premiered at the Lyric Theatre in Baltimore in 1934, with Rachmaninoff at the piano ...
If you want to hear the rest of the piece, the YouTuber who posted
it has a link to the full-length version (23:33) in his comments.
10. Hot sauce from Louisiana: TABASCO. A CSO to
HOTOOLAH! π
11. Website with a STARmeter: IMDB. Internet Movie
DataBase. IMHO this site is in need of a major upgrade and I'd rate it
⭐⭐. I find that the Wikipedia is a much more useful tool for researching
entertainment sites.
12. Vote by __: MAIL.
13. Otherwise: ELSE.
19. Circular shelter: YURT. A teepee on the Mongolian steppes
...
|
|
Yurts |
27. Short-cut pasta: ORZO.
28. Beer alternative: MEAD. The main ingredient of this beer is made by bees. Mead is the first known alcoholic beverage consumed by mankind and is believed to predate wine by nearly three thousand years. Everything you need to know about it. Hand up if you've ever imbibed it? ✋
|
| Mead |
30. Penalizing sorts, for short: REFS. Da bums!
31. Trade unions for onions?: EDIT. Just replace the U with an O! Luv them meta clues. π
32. Vibe: AURA.
33. Brief "Not sure yet": TBD.
37. Comedian Lydic: DESI. Desi Lydic is an American comedian and actress who is a senior correspondent on The Daily Show. She got her start in the 2001 parody film Not Another Teen Movie. She's a little edgy, so it took me a while to come up with this clip, which includes her treading water in Iceland while she explores gender equality with some of the natives; plus more interviews on the same subject with Namibians and Spaniards. All you guys out there might want to skip this ...
38. Chatting on Slack, for short: IMING. Internet Messaging.
39. Voyagers of 1620: PILGRIMS.
42. Victim in Clue: MR BODDY. Mr. Mustard didn't cut it, but one of these perps did ...
46. "Iliad" city: TROY. The city and the legend of the Trojan War.
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|
The Trojan Horse |
47. Arcade currency: TOKENS.
48. Did as instructed: OBEYED.
51. Shift, for one: DRESS. A shift dress is a dress in which the cloth falls straight from the shoulders and has darts around the bust. It frequently features a high scoop or boat neck (like I have any idea what they are π)
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|
Shift Dress Ann Taylor for $159. |
53. Phrase beginning a chase scene, maybe: GET EM. ... and often ending with Book 'em Danno!
55. Club light: NEON.
56. Put down: LAID. "... The best LAID plans of mice and men ..." -- and an ODE to our theme creature by Robert Burns.
58. Journo's intro: LEDE. ALAS, embedded ads in online journalism have killed the inverted pyramid.
60. "The Simpsons" disco guy: STU. As Stu is pointing out, some of this commentary is by ChatGPT Pro.
|
|
Disco Stu |
Bill
And as always, thanks to Teri for proof reading and for her constructive criticism.
waseeley
*Copyright Isaac Asimov. Some of the other videos I watched definitely violate at least two of Asimov's Laws of Robotics. These devices can actually be modified to torment cats and shoot bullets!
